MasukThree months had passed.The small, forgotten town was no longer the quiet, decaying place Arabella had first stumbled into.With the Lucas's influence, investments had begun to pour into the region like rain on parched earth.Lucas had established several legitimate commercial ventures shipping lines, local infrastructure funding, and massive sponsorships for the community clinic and nurseries.The town was booming, transforming into a vibrant, safe haven, but the change within the walls of their home was the true miracle."Lucas, you're putting it on backward," Arabella laughed, leaning against the doorframe of the nursery.Lucas was standing over the changing table, his massive, scarred shoulders completely dwarfing the baby's furniture.He was dressed in a simple white t-shirt and grey sweatpants, his hair slight
Late last night The ward was empty when Alex stumbled in, heart pounding. He quickly checked the adjoining room and froze.Lucas was standing. "Boss." he breathed in. "You're awake." Lucas stood upright beside the bed, tall and imposing despite the obvious pain etched into every line of his body. A small, exhausted smile broke across his face as he looked down at the two people sleeping peacefully near him."They've been waiting for a while, boss," Alex said softly, stepping into a protective stance near the door. "They never left."Lucas nodded slowly, his eyes never wavering from her face. "I could hear her," he murmured, his voice a low, gravelly rasp that scraped against his raw throat. "I could hear everything she said to me... but I was just too weary to open my eyes. The darkness kept pulling me back under."Arabella’s head was tilted at an uncomfortable, awkward angle against the plastic frame of the chair, one hand still resting protectively over the edge of the adjace
Sleep was impossible. Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the phantom sensation of a four-story drop and the crushing weight of his grip around my wrist.Around two in the morning, the heavy oak door clicked open.I looked up. A nurse stepped into the room, her movements hurried and stiff. She wore the standard hospital scrubs, a surgical mask that obscured most of her face, and a standard nurse's cap pulled low. She carried a small tray with a pre-filled syringe.When she saw me sitting there, she paused. Even beneath the mask, I could see the sudden, sharp frown that crinkled the skin around her eyes. She hadn't expected me to be awake."Nurse Abby is on a break," she said, her voice muffled, a bit too harsh for a quiet ICU wing. "I'm here to administer his scheduled medication."I nodded slowly, but a cold prickle of unease washed over my skin. She stepped past me, her focus shifting entirely to the IV lines hooked into Lucas's uninjured arm. She uncapped the needle with a fluid
Arabella was sobbing openly now, her shoulders shaking so violently that the hospital duvet slipped from her fingers. "He didn't know...? He really didn't know I was pregnant when I left?""Hell no, he did not," Alex said fiercely. "He had no idea you were carrying his blood."“Antonio is a devil,” she whispered. “How he twisted everything…”“You didn’t trust him,” Alex said gently. “Not even a little. And I understand why. But Lucas never hated you. Not for a second.”He knelt down in front of her, eyes earnest." When he found you two months ago," Alex continued, his tone softening as he watched her crumble, "he wanted so badly to just run into that apartment and hold you. The happiness he felt knowing his son was breathing, knowing you were alive... it was limitless. But he hesitated. He froze. He couldn't bring himself to walk up to your door, even though it was all he wanted."Alex stepped closer, his crutch clicking softly. "He told me, 'Alex, she went through literal hell jus
"Oh no, not the beautiful-eyed man," the head nurse sighed heavily, her clipboard pressed tightly against her chest as she shook her head. "I just heard from the surgical wing. I hope to God he comes out of surgery. They said he’s in a critical state."Arabella stood at the corridor, the heavy hospital duvet clutched tightly around her shoulders. She stood completely still, fading into the background forced to listen to the nurses and patients huddled near the reception desk."I remember when he first arrived here," the nurse continued, her voice dipping into a somber, reminiscent tone. "He was so hollow-eyed. It looked like the soul had been entirely scraped out of him. I treated him myself when he first came through our doors. And then, the very next day, he’s making massive anonymous donations to our pediatric wing. He was always at the nursery, just standing outside the glass, watching the infants sleep."Arabella’s heart did a slow, painful roll in her chest. She stood there, c
The blackness was winning, creeping in from the edges of Lucas’s vision. He was bleeding out into the dark, slipping away for two seconds, three seconds at a time, before a jagged spike of agony in his shattered shoulder dragged him violently back to the surface.Below him, Amal let out a small, weak whimper, a tiny chest-hitch."Help... help is on the way," Lucas choked out, the words scraping against his raw, smoke-ruined throat. He forced his eyes open, blinking past the dark blood tracking down his brow. "Just look at me, Arabella. Keep your eyes on me."Looking up at him, the terror of the fall was suddenly eclipsed by a suffocating panic for the man holding her. She could see the violent tremors in his jaw, the way his fingers were turning an unnatural, ghostly white around her wrist. He was fading. Every shallow, ragged breath he took sounded like tearing parchment."Lucas, you're slipping!" she cried, her voice cracking as she tried to cradle Amal closer without shifting her w
Arabella. True to his words, Lucas was right there when I woke up.My eyes blinked open slowly, the blur of sleep clearing until his face came into focus—handsome in a way that made my chest tighten. His jaw was sharp, lips pressed into a faint line, eyes steady even in the quiet of morning. For a
Her body twisted against the sheets, small whimpers slipping from her throat, fragile and broken. The dream had her caught in its cruel grip, dragging her back into that night. Her hands clawed at the blanket, nails scraping, as though fighting shadows only she could see.“No… stop…” her voice crac
“You said I’m exclusively meant for you,” she whispered, her voice breaking on the words.“It hurt when you did that, Lucas.” Her tone was small, fragile, the kind that slipped through the cracks of his defenses. The horror of what she’d endured seemed to have stripped everything else away, leaving
Arabella was still sitting in her dark room when Lucas found her.She hadn’t moved. Not for hours.Her hands kept brushing absently against the bruises on her knee as though the motion alone could soothe her.With Don Antonio, she had experienced what true hatred was.Hatred so sharp, so cold, it s







